


The Sky, The Hearts

by VioletRust



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aftermath, F/F, Grief, I wrote this in only a few hours, My writing style's changed quite a bit since last time I posted, Older Characters, Piper is living at Camp Jupiter, Reyna is a femme, The Burning Maze (Trials of Apollo) Spoilers, a lot of emotions, caring for each other, hopefully this still makes sense, i hope it's ok, implied derealization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 00:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletRust/pseuds/VioletRust
Summary: It's years after it happened. Piper is suffering from everything Jason left behind. But Reyna is there to help her through.





	The Sky, The Hearts

                It had been so many years since Jason Grace died, the world was beginning to forget.

                The statue erected by the shrines had lost its golden sheen, and Piper was sure his left ear had begun to crumble. Or it was dented. Melted? Piper wasn’t sure what material the thing was even made of. Nobody ever bothered to tell her.

                Each day, hundreds of people would walk past it without a glance, letting the plaque gather dust. Some kids would sit on it, and Piper would consider rushing out to scream at them. Then she would realise her throat was already hoarse, so she returned to her seat by the window that gave no light. Only vision, no light. No dark either, when she thought about it.

                Each day, his memory faded out of the whispers, and she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. Each night, his memory would hit her in the stomach, and she would hover a few feet away from her body.

                She’d tried talking to the statue. Like some poetic bullshit out of a tragic book about sweet star-crossed lovers and jagged roses. It all felt like a lie. He was never in the statue. He’d probably hate it anyway; the eyes were all wrong and the scar on his lip was off. The place where he lay in Piper’s eyes was in his dead body at the brink of the water. Lifeless. Bland. Gone.

                She never wanted to hear what Nico had heard him say, so much so she had to cut away every single string that held her to that kid. She felt guilty about that, he needed anyone and everyone to lean on. To help him deal with himself the way Piper dealt with the lost blue in the sky.

                She just couldn’t bear the thought of talking to the boy who still had Jason’s scent on his hands and words in his head. Who brings Jason’s brick-a-brac to the surface, unveiling fragments of his thoughts and voice and feelings that should’ve died with his body all those seconds ago. She knew she should send messages back to him, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. He probably felt somewhere along the same lines as Piper, anyway.

                The only comfort she has are Reyna’s strong arms. Her obsidian heart and the smell of her unused hoodies. The only things in the world that cared about her, the only glimmer of hope on her grey, grey horizon.

                Reyna comes back each evening and kiss Piper at the door. Those kisses were a spark of sunlight, of warmth, of softness, that made everything just that bit much more bearable. They were the gravity that stopped her shattered world from slipping away. They gave her a glimpse of the stars from a place she’d never seen before. They were the sound of heaven. They made the seven stages of grief pass in the blink of an eye.

                And when they opened their eyes, all they can see is love. And, just for a lingering moment, life.

                Reyna brought her flowers, new and bright and still in their pots, and Piper would plant them carefully in their front yard. The soil felt good between her fingers, the leaves felt a little closer to the Earth. She’d play music too, sometimes, because it made it feel less like a movie. She sustained herself in that garden, not giving a shit about the curious glares of the people who’d heard about the Praetor’s haunted girlfriend who danced to Twenty One Pilots in dirt-soaked pyjamas.

But Piper didn’t just cling to Reyna’s arm. She had her music. The Apollo kids would whisk her home each week and help her mix her ton-apart lyrics into untangled tunes. She’d sing it with a cracked voice with tears in her eyes, her heart cut to the core and her hands static next to the guitar. Reyna would sit away from the bubble, there to help Piper crawl out when she needed to. Piper would take a step out of safety, hit a key and send it to YouTube, never glancing back to see how her notes had done in the real world.

Everyone in both Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood had shit they were dealing with. Deaths and traumas. They just had reasons they couldn’t break and rebuild, even if that was the best thing. But the quests and pains for Piper had filtered away though the dull thudding of the clock, and now she had time to get stabbed by and figure out her pain, if you could even call it pain.

She had Reyna to hold close at night, and Reyna had her to sing to when the ghosts of the past and present slashed at her braided hair.

Piper uncovered angles of Reyna she would’ve never anticipated: the sketches of sugar on the kitchen counter, the dusty sapphires she clung to by her bed, and an affinity for dresses she lost in practicality. In fact, Reyna was quite the femme.

Reyna tore away Piper’s exterior like it was notebook paper, but Piper still showed pieces of her aching heart that made her freeze over in understanding. Things neither of them could exactly put into words.

Jason had moss growing on his back. The spells and incantations thrown about to protect his presence were wearing thin. Eventually, Piper would have to deal with his faded colours and dry blood stains. It would knock both her and Reyna away from their spheres of reality.

But she had Reyna, and Reyna had her. And they were determined to cling on just enough to avoid falling away.


End file.
